matt.webb.mitovich

Will Four Kings Trump Its Rivals?

Four Kings, the new NBC comedy (premiering Thursday at 8:30 pm/ET) from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, treads Friends-ly territory with the story of four lifelong buds — Barry (Seth Green, the Austin Powers movies; Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ben (Josh Cooke, Committed), Bobby (Shane McRae) and Jason (Todd Grinnell) — who inherit an improbably fantastic New York City apartment when Ben's grandmother passes away. With a quartet of young actors onboard, the backstage shenanigans probably rival what you'll see on screen. "One of the games we play, involving a blue fuzzy pillow being w

Wed, Jan 4, 2006

SORRY, CHARLIE

Here's one reunion that wasn't canceled by Fox: Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards, who reportedly were on their way toward a reconciliation after first filing for divorce last March, aren't, it turns out. According to TMZ.com, lawyers for both sides filed divorce papers on Wednesday, asking that the case be handled in private arbitration. The buzz is that the couple once again hit the skids, seemingly for good, over the holidays. Chuck, I warned you: A blender is not a romantic Christmas gift.

Wed, Jan 4, 2006

Jonathan Rhys Meyers Meets His Match

Jonathan Rhys Meyers had no idea what he was getting into — literally — when Woody Allen cast him in the romantic thriller Match Point, now in select theaters. "I had never read the script when Woody offered the role to me," the actor tells TVGuide.com. "And I just accepted. For any young actor to be in a Woody Allen film, you're just going to do it regardless of what it is." Once Rhys Meyers did peruse the script, he was hit with another surprise. "I was like, 'If I get four or five good scenes, I'll be gold.' And then it dawned on me how much work I had to do in this!" And how. Match Point features Rhys Meyers as Chris, a former tennis champ who latches on to new Brit bud Tom (Matthew Goode

Sun, Jan 1, 2006

CSI: Miami Star Gets Bowl'd Over

During CSI: Miami's holiday hiatus, Rex Linn has set aside Det. Frank Tripp's badge to tackle the role of party planner, as the die-hard Texas Longhorn fan prepares to host the pre-Rose Bowl gathering. (You think we're kidding, but we're not. We've talked to the guy — this thing is big.) Might some real-life lawmen need to break up the bash? TVGuide.com talked to Linn about his college-football loyalties, his fantastic deal on beef brisket and what the future holds for Miami's Frank. TVGuide.com: So I'm looking at this picture your publicist sent me, of you coming out of a phone booth, all Superman-like, revealing a Longhorns T-shirt....Rex Linn: Oh, yeah. [Laughs] That's an idea my

Sun, Jan 1, 2006

Ringing in NBC's New Year Is a Daly Job

While Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest dissertate on the big ball drop for ABC, Carson Daly will oversee all things "Auld Lang Syne" on behalf of the Peacock Network on NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly, a Chevrolet-sponsored special kicking off at 11:30 pm/ET and featuring appearances by funny lady Wanda Sykes, oh-so-straight man Brian Williams and the artist now known as Diddy, as well as a live performance by Mary J. Blige. Here's what the man TV Guide once called "the Pied Piper of Generation Y" had to tell us about his hot Dec. 31 date, the "new" Last Call, "My Humps," Br

Fri, Dec 30, 2005

X-TRA, X-TRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT

Brett Ratner's X-Men 3 is still not finished boosting its baddie quotient. Filipina actress Mei Melancon, who previously worked with the director on Rush Hour 2, has joined the cast as Psylocke, an evil telepathic assassin (my favorite kind, frankly) within Magneto's malevolent Brotherhood of Mutants. X3 is due for a Memorial Day-weekend release, meaning the line for tickets should start forming right about... now.

Fri, Dec 30, 2005

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

Thanks to a boost of buzz from her eight Grammy nods, Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi is poised to best 50 Cent's The Massacre as the year's best-selling album. As of the latest tally, Mimi had sold 4.86 million copies (a robust 290,000 the week of Dec. 18 alone), compared to Massacre's 4.83 mil. Looks like Fitty came up a dollar short. (Snicker) OK, I'm going to hide now.

Fri, Dec 30, 2005

SNL Alum Is Ready to Celebrate '06

Come Saturday night, Comcast Digital Cable subscribers have an extra choice available for their New Year's Eve viewing pleasure: CN8 Presents: Celebrate '06, a five-hour music and comedy extravaganza beginning at 8 pm/ET and featuring such headliners as Styx, the Funk Brothers, Gloria Gaynor, and comedians Jim Breuer and Kevin Meaney. TVGuide.com chatted with Breuer, a former Saturday Night Live player, about what he's been up to since leaving Studio 8H, the funny lessons fatherhood has taught him and his resolution to embrace his Sirius side in 2006. TVGuide.com: You're just finishing up a hiatus from your Sirius Satellite Radio show, Unleashed. Why the break?Jim Breuer: I just needed time off and they gave it to me. I started Friday nights in,

Fri, Dec 30, 2005

HEART ATTACKS

Expect romantic entanglements above and beyond "Will Meredith get back with Dr. McDreamy?" when ABC's Grey's Anatomy returns with new episodes on Jan. 8. As Katherine Heigl tells AP Radio, "There will be a love triangle for my character," Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens, who kinda sorta was dating Alex, but not so much anymore. (Damn syphilis!) As for the aforementioned matter of Meredith and Derek, Heigl says, "I don't know what happens. Nobody will tell us what's going on there." Well, duh. That's what a flashlight and stolen keys to the writers' room are for.

Fri, Dec 30, 2005

Ryan Seacrest Keeps Dick Clark Rockin'

Who to watch, who to watch, as your watch ticks toward midnight on Dec. 31? Of course, no one can be faulted for defaulting to ABC's tried-and-true Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2006, which begins at 10 pm/ET. Although the ageless entertainer was MIA last year (having suffered a stroke just weeks prior), he is now back, to be joined in Times Square by American Idol's Ryan Seacrest, while teen queen Hilary Duff oversees things on the West Coast feed. "I think it was important in Dick's mind that his first appearance back [on TV] would be on his own show," says Seacrest. "This is his party and I have been invited to his party, so I'm going to operate in whatever capacity he wants me to." Here is what Seacrest had to tell TVGuide

Fri, Dec 30, 2005

Jonathan Rhys Meyers Meets His Match

Thu, Dec 29, 2005

Is "Bumped Joey" Now on Earl's List?

One week from now, Earl Hickey will claim that which is rightly his: a berth on NBC's Must-See TV slate, as the freshman hit My Name Is Earl relocates from Tuesday to Thursday at 9 pm/ET, where it will be followed by the equally worthy tagalong The Office. The shake-up also shuffles Will & Grace to the 8 o'clock slot, begging the question — and TVGuide.com wasn't afraid to ask it — of whether Earl will be adding "aided and abetted the bumping of Joey from NBC's lineup" to his famous list of wrongdoings. Earl creator

Thu, Dec 29, 2005

DID HOWARD STERN POP A...

question to longtime girlfriend Beth Ostrosky over the holiday weekend? The New York Post reported earlier this week that the blond beauty has been sporting a sizable sparkler. Now, in Thursday's New York Daily News, Ostrosky plays coy when quizzed about her and Howard's status. "Well, Howard... is going to address that on his show," she says, referring to the shock jock's much-ballyhooed Jan. 9 debut on Sirius Satellite Radio. Does Scores even have a bridal registry?

Thu, Dec 29, 2005

WATCHDOG GROUP BURNS BOOK

Surprisingly — or not? — the American Family Association, which has smote irreverent series dating back to Charlie's Angels, is taking issue with the new NBC drama The Book of Daniel (premiering Jan. 6), in which Aidan Quinn plays a clergyman with a colorful clan and who, by the way, occasionally chats with Jesus (played by Garrett Dillahunt). AFA biggwig Rev. Donald Wildmon slams Quinn's character for being a "drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her midday martinis," takes issue with (shocker alert) the show's portrayal of homosexuals, and pegs the drop-ins by Jesus as "very unconventional." Wildmon's obviously a Willem Dafoe loyalist.

Wed, Dec 28, 2005

Felicity Huffman Aces Gender-bending Role

Sitting next to Felicity Huffman, one immediately notices that she is even softer and prettier than she appears on ABC's Desperate Housewives, where she plays frazzled working mom Lynette. So it's all the more impressive that the Emmy winner convincingly and compellingly plays Bree, née Stanley, a pre-op transsexual who travels cross-country, with the son (Kevin Zegers) she never knew she fathered, in the acclaimed indie Transamerica (now playing in select cities). While it may seem ironic or perhaps calculated that Huffman chose to play such an antithesis to the glam Housewives persona, the fact of the matter is that Transamerica

Wed, Dec 28, 2005

Felicity Huffman Aces Gender-bending Role

OPRAH CLIPS THE BIRD

Oprah Winfrey's private jet, on which the talk queen was traveling with boyfriend Stedman Graham, was forced to return to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport after its windshield was cracked in a collision with a bird on Monday afternoon. Assessing the incident, a fire department official said, "This is not totally unusual. We see these things pretty frequently" — just not with diamond-encrusted windshields on solid-gold Gulfstreams.

Tue, Dec 27, 2005

New Pie Exposes Wild Times at Band Camp

Just when you thought you'd heard the last from the likes of Stifler, "the Shermanator" and good ol' Jim's dad, here comes American Pie Presents Band Camp, a DVD follow-up (available in R-rated and unrated versions) that offers a fresh spin on the familiar franchise by chronicling the misadventures of Matt Stifler, the just-as-mischievous kid brother to the original films' Steve. Busted for, amongst many other things, mooning the audience at a high-school graduation-day concert, Matt is sentenced by his guidance counselor — aka a grown-up Shermanator — to attend the infamous (as in "There was this one time at...") band camp at which, apparently, anything can and does happen. Being a tried and true Stifler and having heard the legendary libidinous tales born of the band camp, Matt sees opportunity in his exile and sets out to live up to his brother's legacy by covertly shooting a "Bandies Go

Tue, Dec 27, 2005

New Pie Exposes Wild Times at Band Camp

Just when you thought you'd heard the last from the likes of Stifler, "the Shermanator" and good ol' Jim's dad, here comes American Pie Presents Band Camp, a DVD follow-up (now in stores in R-rated and unrated versions) that offers a fresh spin on the familiar franchise by chronicling the misadventures of Matt Stifler, the just-as-mischievous kid brother to the original films' Steve. Busted for, amongst many other things, mooning the audience at a high-school graduation-day concert, Matt is sentenced by his guidance counselor — aka a grown-up Shermanator — to attend the infamous (as in "There was this one time at...") band camp at which, apparently, anything can and does happen. Being a tried and true Stifler and having heard the legendary libidinous tales born of the band camp, Matt sees opportunity in his exile and sets out to live up to his brother's legacy by covertly shooting a "Bandies Gon

Mon, Dec 26, 2005

Scarlett Johansson Makes Her Point

Woody Allen's Match Point — the Oscar winner's first London-based project, now playing in select cities — lives and dies on the notion that Scarlett Johansson is a dangerously irresistible beauty. After all, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' former tennis champ jeopardizes everything, including a good wife (played by Emily Mortimer) and a good life, to steal whenever and wherever he can rapturous romps with Johansson's frustrated actress. It all heats to a boil and a shocking third act that makes one thing brutally clear: This is not Hannah and her Sisters, folks. Despite the dark turn her ch

Mon, Dec 26, 2005

Brokeback Star Scoffs at "Courage" Talk

Amidst all of the media coverage of Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain — and there has been just a bit — much has been made of the "courage" it took for two Hollywood leading men such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger to play Jack and Ennis, cowboys who, during the isolation of a sheepherding job, most unexpectedly fall fiercely and intimately in love with each other. Gyllenhaal, though, shrugs off the use of such a loaded, powerful word, saying, "All we did was service a story, something which, to this day, I feel is a lot bigger than any one person involved in the film. "Does it take courage nowadays [to dramatize a gay romance] when people have very different opinions of what that type of relationsh

Fri, Dec 23, 2005

Scarlett Johansson Makes Her Point

Woody Allen's Match Point — the Oscar winner's first London-based project, opening Dec. 25 in select cities — lives and dies on the notion that Scarlett Johansson is a dangerously irresistible beauty. After all, Jonathan Rhys Meyers' former tennis champ jeopardizes everything, including a good wife (played by Emily Mortimer) and a good life, to steal whenever and wherever he can rapturous romps with Johansson's frustrated actress. It all heats to a boil and a shocking third act that makes one thing brutally clear: This is not Hannah and Her Sisters, folks. Despite the dark turn he

Fri, Dec 23, 2005

Randal the Apprentice Defends His Decision

When Donald Trump promises a twist, he usually comes through. Such was the case on last Thursday's Season 4 finale of NBC's The Apprentice, when, after crowning 34-year-old Randal Pinkett as the show's first-ever African-American champ, Trump invited his brand-new protégé to recommend runner-up Rebecca Jarvis for a job, as well. Randal, however, held tight to his big night by obviously waylaying Trump's plan for a double-hire. TVGuide.com spoke with Randal the following day to discuss what has become a topic for hot debate amongst Apprentice diehards. TVGuide.com: First of all, congratulations on being named the Apprentice.Randal Pinkett: Thank you very much.

Thu, Dec 22, 2005

Randal the Apprentice Defends His Decision